World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

Henry Kissinger’s book World Order, published by Penguin Books in 2015, is an analysis of international relations and foreign policy around the world. Kissinger uses his experiences in academia and as a secretary of state and national security advisor to the Nixon and Ford administrations to distill complex issues into a popular format. He grounds his analysis in history and geopolitics to trace the development of different conceptions of regional and world orders in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The author relies on many examples ranging from localized military conflicts and world wars to revolutions and colonial conquest to understand the past and the present. He also uses historic evidence to forecast the greatest challenges of the 21st century. These challenges include the changing international order with the emergence of global powers like China, the benefits and drawbacks of technology as it pertains to international relations, the clashes of competing value systems, the issue of morality in foreign policy, and the limits of international organizations like the United Nations Security Council.

Summary

Because World Order is so broad, Kissinger divides the text thematically and chronologically. After delineating the concept of world order, legitimacy, and power in his Introduction, the author tackles this concept and its applications in nine chapters. Each chapter examines the development of international relations and foreign policy in a given region. The chapters are usually divided chronologically because Kissinger considers historic development very significant. He also underscores the importance of the geography of each relevant country or region—its strengths, weaknesses, and peculiarities—as it pertains to geopolitics. The choice to examine international relations by region and to understand each region’s history is not unlike Samuel Huntington’s concept of the clash of civilizations.

The first two chapters focus on Europe. Kissinger analyzes the Westphalian system of international relations, which he considers to be one of the most important ways to define the balance of power in history. After all, the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), defined procedure rather than substance. This arrangement was independent of specific European rulers. However, the Peace of Westphalia could not prevent the subsequent wars or changes to the regional functioning of Europe. Kissinger analyzes the French Revolution of 1789, the rise of Napoleon, the world wars, as well as the region’s development and consolidation as the European Union in the 21st century. He examines the benefits and drawbacks of the key international agreements, including the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), and how they shaped the subsequent world orders. Two key European statesmen, Metternich and Bismarck, are deemed particularly impactful and are addressed separately.

After this, the author analyzes the Middle East and North African (MENA) region in Chapters 3 and 4. He qualifies the development of international relations in this region as “a world in disorder” (96) because of competing interests as well as cultural and religious disagreements between the Sunni and Shia Muslims. Kissinger considers the Islamic world order unique because it combines political interests underpinned by religion. Kissinger pays particular attention to Islamic expansion from the 7th century onward as well as the rise and fall of large political entities in the region, such as the Ottoman Empire. The author how the European colonial redrawing of this region’s borders shaped its subsequent development. He also focuses on the paradox of Saudi Arabia, a theocratic monarchy and practitioner of fundamentalist Islam, as an important American ally in the region. Kissinger uses his diplomatic experience to examine and present solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian question. He dedicates an entire chapter to the question of Iran and its relationship with the United States because of the challenges that this relationship poses as it pertains to the global order.

The region of Asia is covered in Chapters 5 and 6. Kissinger evaluates the differences in the perception of international relations in key Asian countries, such as Japan and India, in contrast to their European counterparts. As with the previous chapters, the author examines the history of this diverse region in broad strokes going as far back as the export of Buddhism from India into the rest of Asia. European colonialism is also an important factor in regional development. Kissinger underscores Japan’s geographic isolation as it pertained to the development of an isolationist foreign policy until the mid-19th century. The author dedicates a separate chapter to China because of its rise to being a global power and because of his professional expertise in the Nixon administration. He examines China’s lengthy history, its consistent self-perception as the Middle Kingdom around which all others gather, the century of humiliation during European colonialism, and the 1949 Revolution that ultimately transformed China into what it is today. Kissinger believes that China will reshape the rules and the world order in the 21st century.

The United States’ rise to become a 20th-century superpower and the development of its foreign policy are the subject of Chapters 7 and 8. Kissinger analyzes the different styles of foreign policy by focusing on key personalities, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Kissinger considers these three presidents to be formative of subsequent American foreign policy in all its iterations. He also discusses Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan sourced from his professional experience and the challenges that the 1970s and 1980s posed. As with the previous chapters, Kissinger pays special attention to the uniqueness of American geography—being separated by two oceans—which allowed it to develop its style of foreign policy. Similarly, its 19th-century history of expansion across the continent and its Manifest Destiny defined the messianic nature of America’s diplomacy and its desire to export its culturally specific values as universals.

In the final chapter, Kissinger assesses the development of science and technology. He perceives this development as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, technology has given humanity unprecedented access to information and made our lives easier. On the other hand, nuclear weapons and their proliferation represent an obvious danger to all of humanity. Kissinger examines how these important questions have been handled regionally and internationally. In the case of nuclear weapons, he reviews the successes of Cold War-era nuclear agreements. Kissinger also makes several suggestions about fostering international frameworks of cooperation to meet 21st-century challenges head-on.